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Friday, July 1, 2011

One of my favorite baking groups, Sweet Melissa Sunday's is coming to an end. We're baking two recipes for the next couple of months, with our last recipe in August. Besides Melissa's great recipes, the reason I've enjoyed this group so much is the other bakers. It's such a great group of women! I was thrilled when Karen from Karen's Cookies Cakes and More suggested we bake our way through Matt Lewis's Baked Explorations. I'd been wanting to buy this cookbook and now I have a really good reason to buy it! Not that I need another cookbook, I am not sure what the count is these days but I know it's way over 100.

When I read through the recipe for the NY Style Crumb Cake, I quickly realized this wasn't a low fat recipe. 2 1/2 sticks of butter? I knew this much butter would bring two things, a delicious cake and way too many calories! My solution, cut the recipe in half. When reading Karen's comments on the recipe, I noticed she'd had a failure with an 8" pan. Thinking maybe the pan was too small, I sent Karen an email and inquired about using a 9" pan. She quickly responded that the 8" pan was too big and I needed to use something smaller. I decided to use my large muffin tins.

Not being from New York, I was curious what a New York style Crumb Cake was. I think it's what we call a Coffee Cake in the Midwest. My crumb topping didn't seem to be sticking together enough to make these big crumbs. I didn't have the time or the patience to make a bunch of large crumbs, so I went with the topping as it was. There were some large crumbs, otherwise it was like a cake topping. My half recipe made 5 muffins. A couple were pretty large, so I think I could have made 6 muffins. I had quite a bit of topping leftover, which I saved for the next fruit crumble.

The recipe called for 60 minutes of baking time. I set the timer for 30 minutes and when I checked them, I was a little surprised to find they were done. I think they could have baked for 20 - 25 minutes. As the muffins rose, the topping spread out and in the end I didn't end up with as much crumb topping as I would have liked. That's probably why I have so much leftover!!!

OMG! These are so good. They have such a nice tender crumb and the flavor is delicious!You can find the recipe here on Karen's blog and the links to the other Baked bakers's here!

My cake is still in the oven. I needed a cake for tonight so I put it off a day. I made it in a 7 inch round. Let's hope it is all right. I used all the topping and it looks good. I can't wait to have a bite.

It will be posted at http://bizzybakesb.blogspot.com. The Comfy Cook blog is closed down and I brought all the recipes to Bizzy.

Muffins take less time to bake than a much thicker cake; I usually count on 18 to 20 minutes. (Maybe longer if they're jumbo muffins.) Baked Explorations sounds great and I'm glad I'll be able to follow those recipes through you!

About Me

I am a 50 something midwesterner. I love to cook, travel and garden. I collect spoons, a collection started by my mother. My blog is a creative journey through my cookbook collection (over 100), my clippings, newly found recipes and baking groups. I would love to hear from you. I love receiving comments on my blog! My e-mail is lakegirlatheart@hotmail.com.